Drama too good to pass up

What will it take to get you - yes, you - to watch Friday Night Lights? As the superb first season arrives on DVD, the good people at Universal Studios Home Entertainment are so certain you'll love the struggling NBC drama, they'll refund your money if it turns out you don't.

Of course, all you needed was a TV set to watch the show for free when it was on the air (it will return, seemingly against all odds, for a second season this fall), and Friday Night Lights still didn't catch on. But, like most great programs, the series rewards careful, consecutive-episode-minded viewers, so the chance to see what you were missing should not be taken lightly.

A very loose adaptation of both a book and movie of the same name, Friday Night Lights nominally focuses on a high school football team in a small, depressed Texas town. We say "nominally" because, as executive producer Jason Katims articulates in the set's lone featurette, the show isn't about football so much as it's about community, and it isn't about Texas so much as it's about life.

The family at the center of the drama is the Taylors: Eric (the exquisite Kyle Chandler), the coach; Tami (Connie Britton), his strong-minded and gorgeous wife; and their teenage daughter, Julie (Aimee Teegarden, one of the few actors playing students in the cast who isn't yet in her 20s).

As the season unfurls, the story takes occasional forays into cliche, but they're simple to forgive if you're adequately invested - and it's nearly impossible not to be. Judging by its meager bonus features (deleted scenes; the aforementioned, 20-minute behind-the-scenes documentary), the DVD was a rush job in an effort to drum up viewers for the new season, but you can forgive that, too. Go ahead, give Friday Night Lights a shot: It'll be just as lovable even if it ceases to be an underdog.